Eastend has a Rich and Exciting History

In 1913, five years after the preliminary survey of the railway was completed, the real estate agents, architects, tinsmiths, building contractors and entrepreneurs were reaching out with an insatiable grasp to get in on the action in the "just surveyed" village of Eastend.  Lumber was freighted from Gull Lake until the railroad reached the town in May, 1914.  Many young men converged at the town-site to seek employment and a tent suburb sprang up across the river to accommodate them.  Everything was being constructed at such a pace the lumberyards seldom had to stockpile much material.

Much of Eastend's early development can be attributed to J.C. Strong, the original owner of the town-site.  He donated the land to erect the first church on, cemetery, nuisance grounds and also a lot for the first baby born in Eastend, a daughter to Bill and Cecilia Anderson.  She arrived June 14, 1914 and was given the name Eastena.  Upon her 21st birthday she donated the lot given to her as a birthright to the United Church.

A few street lights appeared in 1914 and the first phone central was installed in Patterson's drug store in 1918.  The next dramatic change occurred in 1936 and irrigation came into being.  Main canals and ditches were built within the town so almost every resident could water a garden.  Where the canals crossed a street a culvert was placed and at sidewalks cement culvert-like bridges were constructed.  Most of the ditches were in back alleys and outfitted with small gates embedded at each resident's 'yard.  When sewer and water was installed in 1956 another era terminated; no longer were children able to frolic in the waterfilled ditches much to the delectation of their mother.

Today with a population of approximately 650 Eastend is holding its own.  Nearly all the street are paved and natural gas was imported into the community back in the 1970's.  Gone are many of the community traditions and buildings but the same kinship, community spirit and neighbourliness that built the village still exists, a locality where one can proudly proclaim their prairie roots began.